Sir Guy left hurriedly, not stopping to pick up his cracked pipe. He left the door open for Remo's convenience.
"Trusting sort," Remo said, picking up the phone and asking for the overseas operator.
When he heard Smith's cracked voice, he explained that every lead had evaporated.
"Sir Guy suggested we shake up the local government," Remo concluded. "What do you think?"
"Do it," Smith said. "Things are heating up here. The treasury-bond rumors have reached the Far Eastern markets. The dollar is going south."
"We're on it." He hung up.
To Chiun, Remo said. "We've got his blessing. We can do this faster if we split up."
"You may treat with the House of Windsor," Chuin said, "I will have none of them."
"Parliament's yours."
"We will meet afterward beneath that ugly clock."
"Big Ben?"
"That is what they call its bell," Chiun sniffed. " I do not care to know what they call the clock."
They walked together as far as Birdcage Walk, which Chiun took. Remo continued on and mingled with the knots of tourists outside the palace gates.
He considered going over the wall, when suddenly the gates were thrown open. Remo turned to see a tiny coach pulled by two white horses rounding the circle dominated by the Victoria Monument and realized he had found the perfect way in.
John Brackenberry huddled in his bright red coat as the light rain pattered the top of his high black stovepipe hat, his coach whip rigid in his right hand.
He was proud to drive the wooden-wheeled clarence which carried state papers from Whitehall to Buckingham Palace, where they would be affixed with the royal assent. Driving a clarence, which seldom carried passengers, and never a member of the royal family, was not as prestigious as driving a state coach, but it was honorable work, and suited his traditional sensibilities.
As the clarence passed through the gates, Brackenberry never heard the coach door open. The springs never shifted despite the 155-pound weight that settled into the velvet cushions, brushing aside the box containing state documents fresh from Whitehall.
Thus, when John Brackenberry dismounted to open the coach, the last thing he expected was to find a passenger within.
"I say," he demanded, "who the bloody hell are you?"
"Don't mind me," the man said in a crude American accent.
"Tourists are not allowed in the royal clarence," he sputtered. He was nearly apoplectic. Nothing like that had ever happened before. He had heard of Yank tourists urinating in the parks and neglecting to pay their bus fare, but this was the limit.
"I'm just here to see Mrs. Windsor," the man said, stepping out. "Know where I can find her?"
" I do not know whom you could mean."
"The queen."
Brackenberry drew himself up in indignation. "One does not address the queen as Mrs. Windsor, my good fellow."
" I love the way you people are so polite even when you're upset. Restores my faith in humanity. I thought Windsor was her last name."
"It is not! That is, it is Windsor, but Her Highness is not permitted to use it."
"Heavy hangs the head, huh? Look, this is fascinating, but just point me to the royal chambers and I'll take it from there."
That was too much even for John Brackenberry. "Guards!" he shouted.
"Damn!" Remo said. "I hoped you were going to be British about this."
" I am being British about this, you sluggard!"
A trio of Household Guards appeared as if out of nowhere. One of them happened to be the one Chiun had roughed up earlier. Remo gave him a little wave. The man stopped dead in his tracks, then beat a hasty retreat.
The other two were only too happy to escort Remo into Buckingham Palace after he relieved them of their rifles and dismembered the unloaded weapons before their eyes. For good measure, he took one of their high hats and, rolling it between his hands at high speed, set it afire by friction. He replaced it on the guard's head.
"The queen is not in," the guard with the flaming hat said.
"Prove it," Remo countered.
"Happy to."
Remo was escorted through the palace. The Household Guards even showed him the queen's private chambers and offered him the souvenir of his choice. Remo politely declined. Instead, he asked after the queen's current whereabouts.
There was some dissension on that score. One guard thought the queen was sojourning at Windsor Castle, the other thought she was somewhere in Wales. Perhaps on holiday at Portmeirion.
Outside the palace, the guards escorted Remo to the big gate and opened it for him. They wished him well as he sauntered up Birdcage Walk, his eyes on Big Ben.
The Master of Sinanju regarded the garishly carven Houses of Parliament from the foot of Westminster Bridge, on the north side of the Thames River. His hands, behind his back, were tucked into his kimono sleeves, and he was heedless of the light rain, which evaporated almost as soon as it touched his aged head.
He examined the moat below street level, covered by immaculate greensward. His nose wrinkled at the high green fence whose top almost paralleled the sidewalk. It might possibly be electrified, but that did not matter. He could achieve it with one leap, and the grass in two. He wondered who would be so foolish as not to fill the serviceable moat with water.
Chiun strolled up Westminster Bridge to gain a view of the southern face of Parliament. He spied a patio filled with awninged tables-no doubt for the pleasure of the lords of Parliament. But those tables were empty now.
Chiun paused on the bridge. He looked down. The water was unspeakably discolored. Its smell offended his sensitive nostrils. But for that he would have gone all the way to the end of the bridge and, from its other bank, raced across the water to that most vulnerable point of attack.
It was a sound plan, except the Master of Sinanju would never have been able to get the stench from his sandals, no matter how lightly he raced across the thick waters.
Chiun returned the way he came. There would be a way. There always was.
On Millbank, he paced before the grimy facade of Parliament, cleaned for half of its length by sandblasting. It only made the sootier section all the more ugly.
He crossed Millbank to get a better view. Standing in the smallish Old Palace Yard behind Westminster Abbey, Chiun considered that no fortress was ever built that did not have a secret escape tunnel, which to the professional assassin could serve as an entrance. He went in search of one.
Chiun found what he sought tucked away at one end of the yard-a concrete ramp that led to an underground parking garage.
Smiling to himself, Chiun realized he had found the entrance he required. He floated down the concrete ramp, past the guard box and yellow-and-black-striped dropgate.
The guard in the box noticed him coming down, happened to look away, and when he looked back, there was no sign of the approaching Asian.
The underground garage covered several acres, and was lit by overhead fluorescent lights. The Master of Sinanju floated through it in the general direction of Parliament until he found what he wanted.
It was an elevator, marked by steel doors and guarded by two stone-faced bobbies. They would not be a problem, Chiun knew. Bobbies never carried firearms.
In the lower house, the Prime Minister of England listened to the inane prattle of the Labour representative with a polite expression on her strong motherly face, knowing that if she gave him enough rope, he would say something astonishingly stupid.
"And I submit, Mr. Speaker, that it is Madam Prime Minister's wretched policies that have contributed to the state of near-chaos that the City is currently in."
That did it. The woman known, loved, and feared throughout the British Isles as the Iron Lady leapt to her feet. Her voice reverberated through the ancient halls of Parliament.
" I beg your pardon," she said coldly, "but the honorable gentleman's remarks are further proof, if any is needed, of Labour's utter and callous irresponsibil
ity. The City is suffering from the identical ailment that inflicts the markets from Hong Kong to New York. It has nothing to do with England, never mind the Tory government. Perhaps the gentleman should excuse himself now and read the last weeks' papers. Starting with his own Guardian."
The chambers broke into howling laughter. From Labour and a few Tory back-benchers came dark mutterings. The prime minister sat down, having scored a major point.
She was satisfied. But in her heart, she would have liked nothing better than to have caned the Labour representative.
Labour stood up to rebut, but his first words froze in his mouth. From somewhere in the great halls of Parliament came a ruckus.
"What the devil is that?" the prime minister said. "See to it, one of you."
Bobbies hurried in the direction of the commotion. They came running back just as rapidly. One whispered in the speaker's ear.
The speaker stood up. "Madam Prime Minister," he announced, "I must ask that you and the gentlemen present vacate Parliament."
"Leave?" the prime minister shouted. "But we are in session."
"Parliament is also under attack."
Labour was out the door like a flood of lemmings. Several Tories formed a protective cordon around the prime minister.
"Do not fear, Madam Prime Minister," one said bravely. "They will have to strike us all down to get to you."
"Let us hope it does not come to that," the prime minister said worriedly. "Has anyone any idea what is the problem?"
Before anyone could answer, the problem burst into the richly carved chambers, hurling bobbies before it like an emerald tornado.
The problem was a small man of Asiatic extraction, who deftly evaded the down-swinging clubs in the bobbies' hands. Guns were held high in their hands.
"Do not shoot!" the prime minister called out. "This is Parliament. "
"How many of them?" a Tory asked, craning to see beyond his fellows.
"Just the one," he was told.
The Tories exchanged glances.
"What does he want?" the prime minister called from the knot of protective men.
The Asian answered.
" I am Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju!" His voice, coming from such a frail figure, was awesome in its volume.
"Never heard of you," the prime minister called back, intending to humor the man.
"What! Never heard of the House of Sinanju? Barbarians! We were the greatest assassins known to history while your ancestors were fending off the Danes."
"Did he say assassin?" the prime minister asked. "That he did," a stuffy voice said. "You men. Shoot! Shoot the bugger down!"
The guns came down. And for the first time since the days of Guy Fawkes, violence was threatened against the Houses of Parliament. And as before, it was about to be perpetrated by Englishmen.
The prime minister stared as three bobbies dropped their Webley revolvers to sight on the old Oriental's bald head. She was too strong, despite her grandmotherly features, to look away from violence.
Three revolvers thundered at once. Everyone in the room blinked. And in that blink, something inexplicable happened.
Everyone from the prime minister on down expected to witness the eruption of the aged Oriental's head as three bullets tore it asunder like a pumpkin.
Instead, the shots buried themselves in a richly carven wall.
The old Oriental was no longer there.
Everyone gasped at once.
"Where could he have gone?" the prime minister demanded.
No one knew. And as they pondered the inexplicable, Chiun, Master of Sinanju, reached the apex of his somersault. He had gone high, the better to confuse his foemen. Parliament's vaulted ceiling allowed a high graceful leap and time to pause at the apogee, while the Englishmen below looked everywhere but where the Master of Sinanju was. The bobbies, convinced he had fled, ran out into the corridor, shouting and waving their pistols. Chiun wondered what the world was coming to, when even bobbies carried pistols, like American cowboys.
"Could it have been a ghost?" someone wondered aloud.
"Boo!" a squeaky voice said. The Tories jumped. For the sound came from within their very midst.
"That was not amusing," the prime minister said sternly.
"It was not meant to be," said the author of the boo, none other than the Master of Sinanju. He was standing beside the prime minister, having landed with no more sound than a pillow falling onto a comforter.
The Tory guard were looking out from their circle. At the sound of Chiun's voice, they looked inward. They saw him. They gasped. And they reacted. The circle broke apart and dashed for the exits.
In a moment that seemed even less that a millisecond, the prime minister found herself alone and exposed in the center of Parliament, facing her apparent assassin.
"I am not afraid of you," she said stiffly, clutching her purse tightly.
The old Asian looked up, his mouth compressed.
"You are either very brave or very foolish," he said.
"Thank you, but I reject the former and firmly deny the latter accusation."
"Spoken like a true Englishman."
"Woman. And thank you."
"It was not intended as a compliment," Chiun said. "I will be brief. Your government is in some way responsible for the vicious attack on the world's economy. It will stop. Today. Or all of the remnants of your pitiful crumbling empire will suffer horrendously."
"My dear man," the prime minister said, fixing the Master of Sinanju with her metallic glare, "would you by any chance belong to the Loyal Opposition?"
"I owe no allegiance to England. I am Korean, working for the American emperor, whose name I am forbidden to speak, for he rules secretly."
The prime minister's mouth froze in the open position. Was this man mad? She rejected asking the question point-blank.
"Do I understand you to say that the Americans sent you to ask me this preposterous question?"
"Unofficially," Chiun said flatly.
"Unofficially or officially, your suggestion is absurd, and you may tell whomever you wish that you have this on the most direct authority. Our own financial district, the City, is suffering under calamitous pressure, as is the rest of the civilized world. Surely you understand that."
"Lying will not deter me from my quest," Chiun warned, his face puckered into a web of dry wrinkles.
"Not believing the truth will not achieve your ends any more quickly," the prime minister countered.
"You are telling the truth," the old Oriental said at last. "I thank you for your faith," the prime minister said stiffly.
"Pah, I do not trust you. But I hear your heartbeat. It tells me you are not lying. I will have to look elsewhere for the answers I seek."
"Nevertheless, that is very good of you."
"I am not merely good," said the person called Chiun. "I am great." He left the empty room as if he were free to stroll out to the street with impunity after turning Parliament topsy-turvy.
The prime minister wondered how far he would get.
Chapter 22
Remo Williams wondered how Chiun was doing as he walked along the park side of Birdcage Walk in the direction of Parliament.
The string of police cars and ambulances that roared by, their discordant sirens in full cry, gave him his first clue.
Remo started to run. He had been walking on the St. James's Park side, and cut across the traffic. A bobby tried to give him a ticket for reckless walking. Remo recklessly walked over him and picked up speed.
Parliament Square, when he came to it, was milling with indignant faces. The ambulances and police cars disgorged bobbies, who converged on Parliament like blue ants.
Remo slowed down and mingled with the crowd.
He found Chiun standing at the foot of Parliament's Clock Tower, his hands modestly tucked into his sleeves, his face registering quizzical interest in the confusion swirling around him.
"Any luck?" Remo whispered.
"The
plot does not come from Parliament. And you?"
"The queen's out having tea and crumpets or something."
"I do not think it is her anyway. Modern English queens are good only for collecting their pensions."
"That leaves . . . what, the chancellor of the exchequer?"
"There are also the home secretary, the foreign secretary, and other functionaries." Chiun frowned. "That is the problem when there is no proper emperor," he lamented. "Too many lackeys and no center of power. Would that a strong king still ruled this miserable isle. We would not be leaping about like confused grasshoppers."
"Spare me the if-onlys. Which one should we tackle first?"
"None. Let us walk."
Chiun led Remo across the street and down a flight of steps marked "SUBWAY."
"We taking a train somewhere?" Remo asked. Chiun said nothing. They emerged on the other side, by the River Thames. Remo had seen no sign of the subway system in the long tunnel, and remarked on that.
Chiun shrugged. Wordlessly they strolled down Victoria Embankment, past a pier where sightseeing boats were moored and cockney voices hawked excursions along the river.
"They all used to talk that way," Chiun remarked. "Before they took on airs."
"Do tell." The walk was pleasant, and Remo noted the cast-iron dolphin light standards that studded the concrete embankment every few feet. Strings of light bulbs hung between them like Puritan Christmas ornaments.
They passed under the ornate monstrosity that is Hungerford Bridge, which rattled with trains from nearby Charing Cross Station, following the curve of the Thames.
Police cars rushed by them often, caterwauling rudely.
Remo was content to walk by Chiun's side in silence. No conversation meant no carping. Remo was in a no-carping mood. The wind was blowing from the Victoria Embankment gardens on the other side of the avenue, bringing the smell of wet grass-a distinct improvement over the dank odor coming from the Thames.
After a while Remo ventured a question.
"Why do they pronounce it 'Tems' and not 'Thames'?"
"Because they have forgotten how to pronounce Tame sis,' " Chiun told him, "which is what the Romans called it just as in their laziness they no longer bother with this city's true name, which is Londinium."
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